


The Beginning of a Brighter Sun

by WinterLioness



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, There aren't enough Merlex stories, This isn't anti Jo, i love jo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 12:44:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13636554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterLioness/pseuds/WinterLioness
Summary: Jo decides she isn't ready for forever with Alex, but maybe Meredith is?





	The Beginning of a Brighter Sun

_“The Ancient Greeks described 8 different kinds of love. They had words for everything from_ self love _to love between parent and child and even erotic love. I wonder how often relationships fit into just one type of love. Most people talk of Eros or Mania love as the goal, though that is the love most likely to leave someone_ broken hearted _. Not enough emphasis is put on Pragma - enduring love, or Philia - affectionate love. Christina once told me I am the sun, and I wonder if that is why everyone I love always gets burnt. But when two stars collide one of two things happen. Either they burn brighter together or they become a black hole.”_

 

_ “ _

Alex has loved, and lost, and swore he wouldn’t love again. But Jo was different he promised to himself. She was sane and healthy and stable. Until her husband came back, and then died. Except he wasn’t really her husband, not after the abuse and her fleeing and changing her name. But what do you call someone who you were once married to, when the divorce papers were never filed and he was dead? Is she a widower? Or a divorcee? 

“I’m sorry Alex.” Jo is standing in their apartment, her bag already packed and the ring she had only worn for a day back in the box on his side of the bed. He had just come home from work to find her standing there. He focuses on wondering how long she had simply been standing there staring at the door - because he doesn’t. He can’t, be in this moment.  

“We don’t have to get married.” He is pleading. 

“This isn’t about getting married.” Her voice breaks a little, and she wipes at her eyes angrily. She had gone over her speech at least twenty times since she had come home. “I’m just not ready for everything. I thought I was. I spent so long being afraid to live my life, I considered him finding me into every decision I made. And now I am factoring in your feelings and I don’t even know how to think about what I want first.” 

“What does that even mean? Are you saying its over? Just like that?” Alex demands. 

“I’m sorry.” sobs Jo.

“Am I supposed to be fighting you on this?” Alex asks, running his hand over his face. 

“Please don’t” Jo says, choking on a sob as she sits on the bed. Alex watches her silently, his arms crossed over his chest. After a few moments he nods to himself.

“I’ll stay at Mer’s.” He tells her, giving a last glance to the ring, then to Jo before he turns and walks out the door. He waits until he is in the elevator before collapsing against the wall and crying.

******************************************

“She just decided.” He is telling Mer thirty minutes later. She ordered chinese food and pulled out the tequila and his favorite beer and ice cream that is alway stocked in her fridge and freezer. 

“Do we hate her?” She asks, her feet tucked under his leg, fork halfway to her mouth. He just takes a shot of tequila before shrugging his shoulders. “Can I hate her some while you are deciding?” He snorts at that, putting his empty food container on the coffee table.

“The kids will be excited to have you here.” And he knows it means, stay as long as you’d like, you are welcome here, and I am excited you are here. He marvels for a minute at how close they have gotten, how weird it is to have a person, his person, for the first time in his life. 

“This is what I want.” he tells her, taking a drag of his beer and leaning against the back of the couch and turning his head towards her. When he has just been staring for a few minutes she nudges her foot against his leg. That means I need more information but I don’t want to push you. “This is the version of my life I like the most, coming home and playing with the kids or crashing on the couch eating terrible chinese food. Waking up at a ridiculous time in the morning to make breakfast for the kids. I’m excited to watch them grow up and I like being involved.” Meredith smiles at him, grasping his arm till he offers his hand so they can link their fingers together. 

*****************************

Jo is waiting for her the next morning, clipboards in hand. “I have Casey on post-ops, and I did the pre-ops this morning.”

“Who do we have?” 

“Two gallbladder removals, Gemma Robinson 45 year old woman scheduled for 9 am. Julie Scott, 85 year old woman with alzheimers scheduled for after lunch. I went ahead and scheduled the O.R. for 3 hours in case there is any trouble getting her in the room.” Meredith takes a calming breath, holding her hand out for the first chart and skimming over it. “How is he?” Jo asks.

Meredith takes a moment to look at Jo, “I’m not answering that.” she tells her, turning and walking into the first patient’s room.

****************

She meets Alex for lunch, since Jo is on her service and she knows him well enough to know he would rather skip lunch then risk dealing with people in the cafeteria. 

“Remember the case I had in the clinic, The Ehlers Danlos girl?” Alex asks after pushing his salad around the take out container with his fork. 

“Not specifically.” 

“Well she brought her younger sister in today, seven years old, barely able to walk and in so much pain.”

“That’s tough.”

“I can’t do anything.” He tells her, finally putting his food down and dropping his head into his hands. “The parents are asking me what they should do, and the sister passed out when she got stressed, and this little girl dislocates her knees and hips everytime she walks. There aren’t any specialists around here they can see, they can’t afford to fly to the other side of the country to see one specialist after the other, and even if they could there isn’t a cure.” Meredith puts her hand on his shoulder, shifting to sit closer so she could lean her head against his. 

“I have a patient with alzheimer, gallbladder surgery.” She tells him after its been silent for a while. He grips her hand for a moment, before reaching across her to steal the cookie she had left on her tray.   

***************************

“Dr. Wilson went over all the paperwork with you?” Meredith asks the man in front of her. Jameson Scott. 

“She did.” He takes a moment to look her over, they are sitting outside of his wife’s room, the consent papers in his lap. “Did you know she was married before me? For fifteen years. And sometimes she thinks I am him, and the worst part is that I feel guilty that I’m not.” He bends his head down, signing on the marked lines. Meredith is silent, giving him a small smile when he hands the papers back over. “The love of her life died. And I stepped into his family and fell in love with his wife and it’s been a great life, a better life then I thought I’d have. Probably a better life than I deserve. And I used to be afraid that I was never going to measure up to him and then one day she forgot that he was dead and that we had been married for twenty years, that we have an amazing child together. And she was angry at him and I suddenly could see that while they had this great love full of passion and romance we also had a great love full of trust and patience and home.”

“I’ll take care of her.” She is never sure why patients tell her their life stories? She wonders if they just need someone to talk to, or if they think her knowing that there is someone who loves the person she is operating on then she will try harder, be better. It doesn’t make her try harder because she does her best for every patient, and sometimes it will give her clues on how to help, but usually it just makes losing them even harder.

“Losing her will destroy me, but I’ve already signed a do not resuscitate. If this had happened ten years ago, I would have done anything to keep her with me, but she deserves to be with one of us, not stuck in the middle.” He tells her, patting her arm before getting up and going back into the room.

*************************************************************

By the time she gets Julie into and out of surgery, and finishes her post-op care for the night Alex and Maggie have picked up the kids and gone home. She changes out of her scrubs, turning her head as Jo comes into the room. 

“I know you said you wouldn’t tell me how he is doing.”

“I’m not getting in the middle.” Meredith tells her, checking her purse for her phone and keys. 

“That’s crap.” Jo tells her, anger strong in her voice. “You have always been in the middle. You and Alex are always in the middle of everything the other person does.” Meredith puts her purse down, sitting on the bench to face Jo. When Meredith doesn’t respond Jo starts pacing. “I can’t give him what he wants, and it kills me, but you have to know I love him.” 

“Is that all?”

“I thought we were becoming friends.” Jo finally says, dropping into a seat.

“I don’t know.” Meredith settles on, “I like you Jo, I didn’t at first, but I didn’t like Alex at first either.” She gets up and grabs her purse, pausing to put a hand on Jo’s shoulder. “I don’t hate you Jo, but I can’t be your friend when I all I want to do is yell at you about what a mistake this was.” Jo smiles at her, wiping her face angirly. 

“Are you in love with him?” Jo asks, to which Meredith looks over her shoulder at her, before closing the door behind her. 

**********************************

Alex is cooking, with Ellis on his hip, and Zola set up at the counter with a mixing bowl. Meredith smiles as she leans on the doorway watching Zola laugh as Alex spreads some of the flour she had spilled onto her cheek. 

“What’s for dinner?” She asks, smiling even wider as Zola jumps down to hug her as Ellis starts crying for her. 

“I have risotto on the stove and chicken nuggets in the oven.” He tells her, putting Ellis down a few feet away from her so she can tottle her way to her mother. 

“I’m making cookies!” Zola exclaims, bouncing on her feet.

“Wow! I don’t even know how to make cookies.” Meredith tells her, bouncing Ellis on her hip as she lets Zola drag her to the counter to look at the cookie dough. 

“It’s Luke’s birthday tomorrow and he looooves chocolate chip cookies.” Meredith laughs as Alex makes a face at that. 

“Are we ever going to get to meet Luke?” Meredith asks, stealing some of the cookie dough as Zola tries to pull the bowl away.

“I still think you are to young to be dating.” Alex teases her, leaning on the counter next to Meredith and taking Ellis from her when she starts reaching her hands out to him.

“Don’t listen to him.” Maggie jokes, “How was your day?” She asks Meredith, handing Bailey to her.

“It was a tough one, but all my patients are alive.” 

“I did heart surgery on a ten year old today.” Maggie tells her, running her fingers against Bailey’s head. 

“So it’s a red wine kind of night then?” Meredith jokes, laughing when Alex grabs three glasses and the bottle of red wine. 

*****

They are a weird little family, but perfect in the best kind of way. Amelia gets home as they are setting the table, “I’m sorry whatever happened with Jo happened, but I am so glad you are here to make dinner again.” she tells him, dropping into her seat. Alex just rolls his eyes, getting the kids into their high chairs.

“She cornered me when I was getting ready to leave.” Meredith tells him, like it isn’t a big deal, sitting down. She watches him over the rim of his glass but he doesn’t give anything away with his body language.

“What’d she want?” 

“To know how you are.” She tells him, helping Zola load her plate up. Every meal time when they are together they divide and conquer feeding the children, and if she needs a village she is glad it’s this one. 

“What’d Jo do? Did she hurt uncle Alex? I won’t forgive her.” Zola asks, chewing into her chicken nugget. Maggie snorts, laughing even harder when Alex glares at her, until they are all laughing together. 

*******************************

“Thank you for taking care of the kids and dinner.” Meredith tells Alex as she is getting ready for bed. He is sitting on his side of the bed, reading on his laptop. 

“I needed it today.” He tells her, moving the laptop off his laptop and rubbing at his temples. 

“How’s the research going?” They had finished dinner and he had almost immediately gone to research, while her and her somewhat sisters had gotten the kids wrangled for bed.

“Terrible. There just isn’t a cure, or treatments, or even good options.”

“So what are you going to do?” 

“I have absolutely no idea.”  He collapses back against the pillows, “How’d the rest of your day go?”

“I hate having alzheimer patients, she just reminded me so much of my mom. Or maybe of me. Her husband signed a do not resuscitate.” She leans back on the pillows, turning her head to look at him. She twines their fingers together and turns to look at him. “He reminded me of you.”

“Yea?” 

“Yea.” She confirms. They both turn to look at the ceiling. “Promise me something.”

“I got the kids.” He reminds her, squeezing her fingers.

“That isn’t what I was going to say. I know you can take care of the kids, and you will make all the right medical decisions.” He nods, even though she can’t see him. “Waffles.” She finally tells him.

“Waffles?” He asks, smiling. 

“Promise me, no matter where I am that you will make me waffles.” 

“Waffles.” He confirms, pulling her in to tuck her head against his shoulder. They fall asleep like that.

**********************

“So you and Alex?” Maggie asks, chipper as ever the next morning. Alex and the kids and Amelia are all still asleep while Maggie and Meredith pulled the short straw on early shifts.

“Me and Alex what?” 

“He is in your bed.” Maggie reminds her, pouring their coffees in to go mugs. 

“He is.” Meredith says, taking a grateful sip of the coffee. 

“Are you two dating? Do you want to be dating?”

“Alex is my person.” Meredith reminds her, taking a muffin as she write notes for the kid’s lunch boxes. She smiles when she goes to make them sandwiches and sees their lunches already packed. “When he thought he was going to jail, he told me I would need you guys because he wouldn’t be around.”

“But he is around.” Maggie reminds her with a questioning tone.

“And I like having you guys here, for however long you want to be here, but I don’t need you not like I need him.” 

“Meredith I love you, and I love him. And I was just going to say I like the two of you together.”

“We aren’t together.” 

“Well if you decide you want to be, I’m firmly on team Merlex.”

“I’m not responding to that, let’s get to work.”

****************************************************

“My sister thinks I like Alex.” Meredith blurts out as she bursts into her phsychiatrist’s room. He is back for a routine work up but when she saw his name on a board she had to stop in. She was going to just say hi. But once you have poured your worst thoughts out to someone it’s hard to keep any thoughts in.

“Hello Dr. Gray.” 

“I can’t like Alex.” She tells him.

“Why can’t you like Alex?” He asks, the slightest smile on his face. 

“I can’t lose Alex.” She emphasizes. 

“Liking someone, even loving someone doesn’t mean they are going to die.”

“He asked me out once.” She tells him, though looking back it was more like his evil twin brother. Sometimes it’s hard to remember him as he was then without it being rose colored with the way he is now. “Then he married Izzy and she left. He dated Lexie and she died. Derek died. Jo just left him.”

“Jo left him? Is that what made you come to this realization?”

“I didn’t come to any realization.” She argues, checking his vitals on instinct. “I have an alzheimer patient.”

“Did she remind you of your mother? I am getting a little lost here. I may be out of practice” He jokes. 

“She reminded me of me.”

“She reminded you of you or of your fears?”

“Sort of.” She stops pacing and drops into a chair next to him. “I feel like my brain is going to fast and I don’t know how to slow it down.”

“Have you tried taking deep breaths?” At her unimpressed look he laughs. “I’m not really on the clock here, don’t really have a clock since retiring, but do you want to start from the beginning?”

“The beginning of Alex?” She asks, dubious. “Jo broke up with him because she wasn’t ready for everything he wants. The kids and the house and a family. And she was jealous that he had those things with...”

“With you?”

“With us.” she corrects after a moment. “With Maggie and Amelia and the kids and, yea and, me.”

“Okay.”

“And I have this patient with alzheimer, and she was married and her husband died and she got remarried and her husband is sitting outside her room because she gets afraid when she doesn’t remember him and I don’t want to do that to someone.”

“You don’t want to do that to Alex?” He questions?

“I’ve known Alex since the first day of my residency.”

“So you don’t think you would forget him?”

“I’m afraid I will forget that he is a good guy now. I’m afraid things seem to easy with him, I’m afraid that loving me will destroy him, or me.”

“What do you mean things seem to easy with him?”

“I don’t want to decide I like him, like that, just because it is easy.”

“Love doesn’t have to be hard to be real.”

“But do people get two soulmates? Would it be fair to keep him from his soulmate just because mine died?”

__  
  


**********************************************************

“I talked to my therapist.” Meredith tells Amelia, who she is eating lunch with. 

“I went to an AA meeting last week.” Amelia tells her, taking a bite of her sandwich. When Meredith doesn’t respond Amelia puts down her sandwich to give her her full attention. “The therapist from after the accident? I thought he didn’t practice anymore.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Are you okay?”

“I knew with Derek. Like even with all the drama and the fights and everything. I knew we were it.”

“I don’t know why you are bringing this up.” Amelia tells her, pushing her food away. She does okay most days, but losing her brother was one of the hardest losses. Harder knowing she could have saved him. She still goes to consult him on hard cases, still wishes she could search for him at the bottom of a bottle on the bad days.

“I hate that I care what you think, but I feel like if you approve then maybe so would Derek.”

“Derek would want for you to be happy.”

“You don’t even know what I am talking about.” Meredith argues.

“It doesn’t matter. Derek wanted you to be happy.”

“I am happy.” Meredith tells her, smiling at the thought of all the things that make her happy now, how different it is to be happy, to feel anything after the depression that plagued her for so many years. 

“But this thing, the thing that I am pretending not to know about, might make you happier.”

“But I am happy.” Meredith tells her again. 

“I don’t think I am qualified to be giving relationship advice.”

“It isn’t a relationship.”

“When you were attacked it almost broke him.”

“That isn’t helpful.”

“You brought it up, now you have to listen to what I have to say. I saw you and Derek, I hated you most of the time. But I did see how much you loved each other. And I was to caught up in my own grief when he died, but I saw what it did to you. And I fell apart then, and I fell apart again when you were attacked but I did see Alex.”

“What is your point?”

“Losing you is going to destroy him, and losing him will destroy you, and I don’t think holding yourself back from whatever you are feeling or have realized is going to save either of you any pain.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m still learning how to love myself.” Amelia tells her, giving her a sad smile before picking up her sandwich and walking away.

__  
  


**************************************************

“Everybody seems to think we are going to suddenly fall in love, or hook up, or something. ” Meredith tells Alex that night. 

“Because Jo broke up with me?” He asks, incredulous.  

“No. Maybe. I’m not really sure actually. But it kind of makes sense.” She tells him.

“Does it?” He asks, shutting his laptop and giving her his full attention. 

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“I used to. All the time.” He jokes, wiggling his eyebrows at her. She throws one of the couch pillows at him. “Seriously?”

“It would be weird right?”

“Mer.” He warns.

“What?”

“We can’t.” He tells, still a clear warning, then “I can’t joke about this.”

“Why?”

“Jo and I just broke up.” He reminds her.

“I know.”

“I can’t replace Derek.” 

“I would never ask you to.” She tells him, pulling a pillow to her chest and watching his face. When he can’t take the silent staring contest anymore he crawls over to her and rests his head against her shoulder. 

“Tell me what you are thinking.”

“I’m afraid you are going to go back to Jo. And I know that’s not fair. And I know I’ve been rooting for you and pushing you to her.”

“So you are afraid of me leaving?” he asks, his breath warm against her chest. “I’m not going anywhere Mer.”

“It’s not just fear.” 

“Then what is it?”

“What do you want?” She finally asks, pulling away to slightly to try to get eye contact.

“Do you really think we can just change?” He asks, maintaining eye contact.

“We could try.” She offers, a nervous smile making its way across her face. He leans over to kiss her, trying to hold his smile back. After a minute they both laugh, their foreheads pushed together. When they catch their breath, he ducks his head to nip at her chin playfully, making her toss her head back as she laughed again. When her giggles subside, she lifts her head, making him back up. She kisses him purposefully this time. He kisses her back, adjusting so he can brush her hair out of her face as he pulls away.

“Oh.” He whispers softly, pressing a kiss to her temple. 

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_ "And that’s how it starts.  _

_ Or maybe it started at the beginning, when we were basically kids who happened to be old enough to drink. Did it start when we met? When we first became friends? Was it that moment I realized he was my person? Or when Derek died? _

_ Then again maybe it did start with that first kiss.  _

_ I dread I'll know exactly when it ends." _

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**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! I may be writing a sequel or adding chapters at some point...


End file.
